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Rendering with Arnold in 3ds Max using the MaxtoA plug-in.
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Rendering out alpha channels with the toon shader?

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Message 1 of 7
wilsongworks
5954 Views, 6 Replies

Rendering out alpha channels with the toon shader?

Is there a way to render out a toon shaded scene that has an alpha channel in the background? I'd like a scene with an empty background so I can add in a hq image later, but I end up getting just the toon outlines and none of the shading. I've tried saving in .tif and .exr format, filter set on contour, and haven't had any luck.

What I get when saving:

1434-toon-alpha-3.png

What I'd like (I had to manually delete the background in photoshop from a jpg render on this one):

1435-toon-alpha-2.png

Does anyone have any ideas?

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Message 2 of 7
Anonymous
in reply to: wilsongworks

Yeah it’s actually pretty straight forward.

You need to create two beauty AOVs. One with the contour filter and the other with the default Gaussian filter. That way you get the shaded and the outline , and can just multiply them on top.

Message 3 of 7
lee_griggs
in reply to: wilsongworks

Information about rendering out Toon Edges separately can be found here.

Lee Griggs
Arnold rendering specialist
AUTODESK
Message 4 of 7
chadGE3G6
in reply to: Anonymous

I wish this process could be simplified. Seems like you'd always want the toon line and the "fill". Shouldn't it function like this by default?

Message 5 of 7
crowellster
in reply to: wilsongworks

I'm so confused---not at all able to figure this out. I really want to be able to keep my default filter as contour so I can view it in the IPR. But then everything with the alpha channel on the exports gets all screwy.

Message 6 of 7
bhjohlman
in reply to: crowellster

Did you ever figure this out? I have read thorough this guide: https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=71008401 but it still doesn't make sense to me.

Message 7 of 7

Issue: when rendering ToonAi shader in Arnold renderer with transparent background it renders outline only with no alpha:

 

Toon outline method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUnQtkBnV8s

 

In case if video dissappears: 

Rendering: Toon: Assign outline- to make it visible on the renderer : convert outline to polygons in the modify: convert: paint effects to polygons

 

Turn off visibility of the skybox (aiSkyDomeLight1 for me)  attributes:visibility: camera to 0 thanks to this tif render sequence renders transparent background.

 

 

 

@Anonymous Arnold outline method: 

Added ToonAi material to object.


Turn off visibility of the skybox (aiSkyDomeLight1 for me)  attributes:visibility: camera to 0 thanks to this tif render sequence renders transparent background.


Added outline in the render settings :arnold renderer: filter: outline

 

Set up .tif format in render settings: common: file output: tif.

 

Change name prefix to outline.

 

Render- you should obtain just black outline with transparent background.

 

Rendering alpha:

Render set: arnold renderer: filter: gaussian

 

Change name prefix to alpha.

 

Render- you should get alpha on the transparent background.

 

Now you have obtained transparent alpha and transparent outline files. 

 

Move to editing program of your choice and overlay black outline on alpha.

 

Done.

 

Takes bit time with overlaying but you can automate it in photoshop scripts or do it by hand.

 

 

 

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